Anyone who knows me understands the hyperbolic nature of my use of the word idiot. When I came back from Brasil I watched a show called House. Has anyone seen it? This guy has a team of doctors who he is constantly insulting, calling them idiots every time they do something wrong. Of course he doesn't really believe they are stupid, only that they can at times engage in stupid commentary. Such is the case here. These guys have intelligence, but it is driven by their own bigotry, resulting in truly stupid commentary, arguments and beliefs.
I'm not frustrated.
Of course you are. What you just said would embarrass anyone.
I don't mind that people know I admire and respect Harris. I do.
No, that isn't the problem. The problem is your idiotic claim that he is one of the greatest thinkers of our time. Really? Then why are you incapable of producing a single innnovative thought poduced by Harris? Again, you spoke in ignorance. The fact is you like his bigotry so you're trying to exhalt him to some special status where he doesn't belong. Dawkins will be dead soon, probably die of gingivitis, and you'll be left with a huge gapping hole in atheistic credibility. So you're trying to promote the self-made speaker Harris and the journalist Hitchens as quickly as you can. The atheistic pool of reputable scholars really must be running dry.
He's a brilliant guy. You can dispute it all you want, but that just makes you an even bigger idiot (assuming that's possible).
What is so brilliant about him? Name something. You can' even do that much because you know damn well that anything you mention is going to be shown to be either 1) stupid or 2) borrowed from previous bigots or 3) both. I have already shown he doesn't even believe what he says about science and taking nothing without evidence. And yes, the guy did say people with certain relgious believes should be killed - or that it would be ethical to do so. I'm certain there are people here who concur with that. And he defends Stalin, tries to imply that the Jews during the holocaust had it coming, etc. Yes, we can see why you have his poster above your bed.
You really are a moron. That's an established fact, indirectly by your own admission: - You think Dawkins is an idiot. Dawkins is at least a hundred times smarter than you are. What does that make you?
Dawkins is an absolute idot when discussing religion, and I have demonstrated as much on numerous occassions. No one here has been able to defend him, including you.
- You think Harris is an idiot. Harris is at least a hundred times smarter than you are. What does that make you?
Harris is an idiot when discussing religion, and I have demonstrated as much on a couple of occassions, including this one. Here is yoru big chance to prove I am wrong, and yet you cannot. All you can do is attack me instead. This is standard protocol here for our resident atheists.
- You think Dennett is an idiot. Dennett is at least a hundred times smarter than you are. What does that make you?
I watched Dinesh D'Souza mop the floors with Dennett on his own home turf. I downloaded a talk by Dennett where he was discussing memes to his students. I've discussed this before. Dennett
is little more than Dawkins' lapdog, for several reasons. His functionalist view of consciousness is also idiotic, and I have discussed this as well. You don't have the mental capacity to discuss these issues. All you can do is sit back and reassure yourself they're "at least a hundred times smarter." What scientific experiment confirmed this? None. So you have blind faith in them. This statement is similar to a Mormon insisting the bishops are more spiritual than the next guy. That is what their faith is based upon. And so it is with your blind faith in the four horsemen. But you cannot defend their arguments and don't feel the need to since they are above reproach.
You think Bill Maher is an idiot. Even Bill Maher is at least a hundred times smarter than you are. What does that make you?
you're not going to come across as witty by asking loaded questions after begging questions and relying on circular reasoning (i.e. "You're stupid, as proved by the fact that they are smarter than you!") I almost like Maher because I have a special place in my heart for people who can make me laugh. But he can be an idiot too, and his film flat out deceives by presenting refuted information from Zeitgeist. If he were half as smart as you think, and had hlf the integrit he leads on, then he would not have mentioned such idiotic things in his film. But I guess that's ethical in your book. The end justifies the means.
I had never heard of Harris, or read anything by him before your post appeared.
Wow, so you ignored the thread discussing someone you never heard of, until you saw my name. At that point you decided to start reading, but upon realizing it was I, you merely scanned through it. So my presence got you interested and disinterested all at once. I'll buy that.
EA, simply put, Dawkins goes way beyond what the evidence will bear. Is the difference between Gould and Dawkins simply degree? Perhaps. But it is clear Dawkins derives his arguments based not on science, but rather his agenda to see religion rendered "irrelevant." OF course he has managed to write several books on this topic, which is why i say it is at the core of teh New Atheists' agenda. He wrecklessly tosses the authority of evolutionary biology into every other field in the vicinity, hoping to explain everything religion claims to explain. I've already provided examples. And it gets old with you trying to portray me as a creationist or someone who rejects evolution. The careful reader will notice that I never have denied evolution. I've asked some challenging questions that get down to the nitty gritty, but you only assumed these were made to disprove evolution. I've never said that.
With respect to my comment above, a while back a thread was started by an atheist (can't remember who) asking why theists are "willfully ignorant" of evolution. Someone else said one of his favorites was that "we came from apes." I then presented a various photos attributed to Darwinism, of a monkey gradually walking upright until morphing into a man. My point was simply this. No wonder people have been misled about humans coming from apes. The image is literally published in virtually every book discussing the subject. Then just as Tarski and others assured us the statement is false and misleading, you came in and said "I think it is fair to say we came from apes." ROFL! Make that another reason why people can be misled. Tarski and Dude were telling us we didn't come from apes at all, and you're calling it a "fair statement." It was irony overload. The thread was started to ridicule theists for misunderstanding evolution, and here were the leading atheistic proponents proving the point that it doesn't require theism to be confused.
Also the atheist "Who Knows" jumped in, admitted he knew virtually nothing about the subject. Turns out misunderstanding wasn't limited to theists after all. You then proceeded to change the subject by attacking straw men from creationist websites, while I was asking deep questions to challenge the atheists to come up with the same answers, to further highlight the irony that few atheists had answers to begin with.
Ever sinc e you keep referring to my "misunderstanding" of evolution illicitly. You don't even understand why that thread was made, and why I responded the way I did. You and others kept thinking I was trying to refute evolution, even though I explicitly said I agreed with it.
“All knowledge of reality starts from experience and ends in it...Propositions arrived at by purely logical means are completely empty as regards reality." - Albert Einstein